FDA Confirms Toxicity of Homeopathic Baby Products; Maker Refuses To Recall (arstechnica.com) 309
Last year in November, the Federal Trade Commission issued an enforcement policy statement that requires over-the-counter (OTC) homeopathic drugs and product makers to disclose in their advertisement and labeling that there is no evidence that homeopathic products are effective. At around the same time the FTC issued the statement, the Food and Drug Administration was investigating homeopathic teething gels and tablets, which may have been improperly diluted, thus causing serious harm to infants. The FDA investigated 10 infant deaths and more than 400 reports of seizures, fever, and vomiting and confirmed Friday that belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade, was the prime suspect. When the FDA notified the products' maker, Hyland's, the company would not agree to recall the products. Ars Technica reports: Hyland's has been defensive since the FDA first opened the investigation last September. In an October press release, the company referred to agency's warnings as a source of "confusion" and assured consumers that the products are safe and effective. Still, the company discontinued distribution in the U.S. The National Center for Homeopathy, which has ties with Hyland's, slammed the FDA, calling the agency's warnings "arbitrary and capricious." In an "action alert," the organization went on to suggest that warning was prompted by "groups interested in seeing homeopathy destroyed" and led to "fear mongering" by the media. As before, the FDA is urging parents to avoid the homeopathic teething products and toss any already purchased. The FDA does not evaluate or approve the homeopathic products, which have no proven health benefit. Belladonna is an active ingredient in those products, but is supposed to be heavily diluted. Homeopaths belief that ailments and diseases can be cured by trace amounts or "memories" of toxic substances that mimic or cause similar symptoms. Homeopathy is a pseudoscience that has been squarely debunked, offering no more than a placebo effect. In its announcement Friday, the FDA said it had found inconsistent amounts of belladonna in Hyland's products. Some of the amounts were "far exceeding" what was intended.
I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:5, Insightful)
Cutting back on bureaucracy and regulations sounds great in theory but, well, this is what it gets you.
Re:I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:5, Funny)
Modern society has made the world such an overwhelmingly safe place compared to earlier periods in human history that the universe has to find new ways to work in natural selection. It says homeopathic right on the box, and I would imagine that this was something the parents sought out and wanted to buy. So just let them remove themselves from the gene pool or just regulate who gets to be a parent because I have a feeling that single regulation would remove the need for a lot of other stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Evolution happens even in a relatively fixed environment. If nothing else, you'll have neutral drift.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is they've found evidence the product is defective and the poison is not properly diluted. From this point if anyone dies it's a murder case. It's not the kids fault the parents are deranged and there have been many cases where crazy/stupid fools have somehow managed to have offspring that far exceed expectations given their bloodline. Humanity is a crap shoot.
Re: (Score:3)
I would imagine that this was something the parents sought out and wanted to buy
I'm not so sure about that. I doubt most people actually know the true definition of homeopathic. A lot of people get that confused with "organic" (which is an entirely different argument). A while back I had to explain this to my mother-in-law. She had totally confused "organic" and "homeopathic" with "natural". She had no idea that these were 3 completely unrelated things. I doubt that she's an outlier; quite a lot of people get their medical advice from Oprah and Dr. Oz.
In the case at hand, the sol
Or "holistic" (Score:4, Informative)
It seems some people confuse "homeopathic" with "holistic". Those are of course two very different things.
A short explanation of homeopathy for those unfamiliar:
For any ailment, you find something that will *cause* that ailment (ie a poison).
You then place a drop of the poison in a bucket of water and mix it up.
Then you take a drop from that bucket and put it into another bucket of water.
Do this several hundred times. (This is why it's labeled "300X", it's been diluted 300 times).
In the end, they'll be no poison left the last bucket, but because you had put poison in the other bucket, the water in the last bucket will do the opposite of what the poison does.
That is of course, utterly and completely ridiculous. If done correctly, there will be zero molecules of the poison in the bucket - it's 100% water. You just paid $8.99 for WATER. If it's done incorrectly, as Hyland's did, you end up with poison in the product.
Re: (Score:3)
Does it matter since it's all a scam? The problem here is instead of the usual grass clippings the scam artists involved believed their own bullshit and put a real poison in there. Do them for manslaughter like any other poisoners.
They managed to fuck up a placebo. How fucked up is that?
Re: (Score:2)
I'll try again.
When it's a lie does it really matter if it is spelled the wrong way or not?
This stuff is just like a Hollywood idea of Voodoo where it is so obviously fiction that it does not matter at all if someone there is something true about some aspect of Voodoo. If there was some truth that bit has never made it as far as the consumer.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm reminded of an old IRC quote [bash.org]: The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
In principle, I like the idea, but the victims here are not the ones being stupid.
Re:I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the United States will be lucky if there is an FDA. Remember, it's all about deregulation now. Who needs food safety anyways? Only fucking Commies.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm generally left leaning, but in the case of the FDA, I think we'd do well do away with it. Where I part ways with the deregulaters is that I would like to see a smaller and more sane replacement.
Re:I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:5, Informative)
Which would be fine if it was just morons poisoning themselves, but they're poisoning small children, and that's the chief problem here.
There's a link to the package right in TFS (Score:3)
Homeopath companies know what they're pushing is junk science. So they dress it up to look like real medicine. I've tried plenty of actual medicines that people swear by but that do nothing for me. I don't keep trying them, but still. There's a lot of OTC stuff out there. Now, as a nerd I'm intensely cynical (comes from the years of bu
I don't want morons poisoning themselves either (Score:2)
Re:I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:5, Insightful)
There are over 7 billion people on this planet, we can afford to lose a few, especially ones as dumb as this.
Ignoring for now the blatantly sociopathic nature of your comments, shouldn't it be the stupid person who suffers, and not the helpless child who depends upon that person for health care? Maybe the child isn't as stupid as the parent?
Re: (Score:3)
Ignoring for now the blatantly sociopathic nature of your comments, shouldn't it be the stupid person who suffers, and not the helpless child who depends upon that person for health care? Maybe the child isn't as stupid as the parent?
Odds are good that if the parent is a stupid asshole who shits all over everything, the child will be as well. While there is certainly the risk you describe, we are well over Earth's carrying capacity given our current behavior and I'm not willing to do anything which prevents stupid people from killing their children.
Re:I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:4, Funny)
I see no shortage of dickheads either.
Re: (Score:3)
I see no child shortage.
The issue is not about a shortage of children. It's about an endangerment of children.
People who endanger children should have their children taken away from them, and be put in jail. Which, indirectly, was the GP's point.
Re: (Score:2)
How would you know?
Re:I know it's fun to make fun of Homeopathy (Score:5, Insightful)
Children are not chattel, they are not property. Society and the law bequeath upon parents the right to raise their offspring, and gives them wide, but not infinite latitude in how that is done. Minors are still citizens, and still enjoy constitutional rights, and that means a parent has absolutely no right to cause their child injury, or more to the point, kill them, whether that be intentionally, or due to the parents' belief in some medical quackery. You hurt or kill your child by feeding them poisons, you are a killer, at the very least guilty of manslaughter.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Because if recent history is a guide, they'll make another power grab and grant someone an exclusive on drinking water which will then be a bargain at the low-low price of $100/liter.
Re: (Score:2)
I watched a documentary (Frontline) [pbs.org] discussing how a bad strain of Samnoinella Heidelberg was being distributed by Foster Farms chickens and how powerless the FDA was to put an end to it. Basically the FDA is powerless unless they can prove a smoking gun. Despite thousands of people getting sick and them tracking it down to certain farms they could do nothing until one person who got sick happened to have another batch of chicken from the same lot that they froze. It took something like 18 months and the FD
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that you are still thinking of facts as "true" or "false". And obviously this has been popular since the Renaissance. But we are now in the Age of Alternative Facts, and if someone disputes the efficacy of a quack product, they can be debunked using ad hominem arguments without reference to factual information. The framework of law in which you live now works this way, better get with the program!
Re: (Score:2)
At this point, it sounds like it's not longer an FDA problem... call it what it is, which is "conspiracy to commit murder" and kick it over to the FBI.
Homeopathy is a scam (Score:3)
It is a grandfathered legality from the days before the FDA. Homeopathic "drugs" have not been through clinical trials or been shown to be efficacious. They are based on a principle that somehow if you have a substance you can dilute it until perhaps only a couple of MOLECULES in your liquid will somehow cure your problem.
The FDA should shut down this sham of a company once and for all.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, the problem here is shoddy manufacturing in conflict with homeopathic principles. I do not defend their scam, but the same problem, say, in Paracetamol, would also have killed people. Hence these people are guilty, both by homeopathic standards and by sane standards.
Homeopathic Baby Products? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that where you start out dissolving one baby per unit of inert carrier fluid, and then perform series of repeated dilutions until you are left with a substance that statistically contains no atoms of the original baby?
Does this have anything to do with the making of baby oil? I've always been afraid to know what happens inside those factories.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, mate, now I'm going to have nightmares for a week!
Homeopathic toxicity (Score:2)
Inevitable and unavoidable (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as North America insists on persisting their "My ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge", this problem will never go away, and people will continue to die.
Quite frankly, I'm at the point now where I don't think the FDA should do anything. These people are just so god damn willfully stupid that there's absolutely nothing that can be done short of putting them in an asylum. But since we won't... let them make their choices and suffering the consequences.
The FDA is "obviously" being paid under the table by Big Pharma(tm) to keep homeopathy down because homeopathy is such a clear threat to Big Pharma profits. So basically they're damned regardless of what they do. If they try to regulate homeopathy, that would effectively give homeopathy unwarranted legitimacy. If you try to shut it down, 10s of thousands of brazenly stupid idiots will start shouting and flailing pitchforks about with the usual battlecries of... well... the kinds of stuff already mentioned in the article/summary.
I don't think this should even fall under FDA juristiction anyway. It should be treated like the criminal matter that it is. The gov't should charge these parents with child endangerment and manslaughter for knowingly giving their kids poison, because that is exactly what they did.
Re: (Score:2)
Didn't the British NHS recently stop paying for homeopathic and chiropractic treatment?
Begs the question: 'How long did they waste money on bullshit?' Did they let it decimate their patient population first? Irregardless of who pays, bullshit thrives. I could care less.
Re: (Score:3)
Darwin always rules in the end. (Score:2)
Carry on.
Why buy Homeopatic meds - tap water has it all! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
survival of the fittest (Score:2)
Darwinism doesn't stop just because we live in societies and take care of the weak, it's just changes. Now survival of the fittest means you know enough to help your offspring. People who get goods that are not FDA approved are not selected for.
You Don't Piss Off the FDA (Score:2)
The literally have the power. Only takes them a day to get a court order, come out with the sheriff, escort everyone out and lock down a building.
I have mixed feeling regarding this (Score:3)
On one hand, I truly believe that homeopathy doesn't work. Period.
But I also support the use of the placebo effect to address minor problems. All drugs carry a risk associated with them, and if we can cure your mild headache with a pill that does nothing, that beats curing a mild headache with a molecule that may have side-effects.
The problem is that placebos only work if you believe in them. And they work better if they are expensive. And to have people make money out of ignorance makes me cringe.
So I choose to support ending the whole homeopathy deal. But I would be looking into other, ethically reasonable ways to make use of that effect by modern medicine.
Lots of misinformation in the comments section (Score:4, Informative)
In the forest of anti-FDA and/or pro-homeopathic comments above, I was curious, so as far as I can determine, this is the FDA timeline for this...
September 30, 2016 [fda.gov]
The FDA is analyzing adverse events reported to the agency regarding homeopathic teething tablets and gels, including seizures in infants and children who were given these products, since a 2010 safety alert [fda.gov] about homeopathic teething tablets. The FDA is currently investigating this issue, including testing product samples. The agency will continue to communicate with the public as more information is available.
Reference to adverse event reports here [fda.gov]. Multitudes of reports reference events of seizures by infants.
January 27, 2017 [fda.gov]
Laboratory Analysis of Homeopathic Teething Tablets
FDA has completed testing of homeopathic teething tablets labeled as containing belladonna and other ingredients and marketed by CVS and Hyland’s Inc. Our testing found that the belladonna alkaloids (atropine and scopolamine) content and coffea cruda (caffeine) content is not uniform among the manufactured tablets. FDA analysis found the levels of atropine and scopolamine in some of the CVS tablets and the levels of scopolamine in some of the Hyland’s tablets far exceeded the amount stated on the products’ labels.
This is despite Standard Homeopathic Corporation (the manufacturer of Hyland brand Teething Tablets) insistent claims in voluntary reports that "Manufacture and processing occurred within established procedures to ensure product quality."
So you are the administrator of the FDA and are sitting on the pile of adverse event reports and have this completed laboratory testing report.... What would you do?
Re:TIL (Score:4, Informative)
The packaging for the product described in the OP looks no different from five similar and safe products that are on the shelf at your local drugstore. The word "homeopathic" is in small type compared to other marketing words - which are the same words used on much safer products - and many people have no idea what "homeopathic" means in any case.
So yeah, no. This is a clear case of misleading packaging and marketing; whether it is a criminal case remains to be seen.
Re:TIL (Score:5, Informative)
See it from their point of view: Homeopathy uses the same logic as vaccines.
However, unlike vaccines, with homeopathy, the undereducated are only damaging the likelihood of diminishing the number of their own offspring. Ignoring vaccines designed to protect herd immunity hurts the rest of us, too.
Re:TIL (Score:5, Informative)
Good occasion to watch Tim Minchin's "Storm [youtube.com]" again, about alternative medicine and such. (Skip the first minute)
Best quote from that video: By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work?...
Medicine.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, so let's continue with that logic. If someone first jabs them with a pin then they will have no problem with someone stabbing them with a knife because they've been "inoculated" against stabbing.
Maybe they should use their "logic" to understand that one has been proven to be effective, the other has not.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exposing babies to peanuts (Score:3, Informative)
"In 2015, a study showed that giving peanut products to babies could help prevent peanut allergy. This was exciting news, given that 1-2% of children suffer from peanut allergy, an allergy that can not only be life-threatening but last a lifetime, unlike other food allergies that often improve as children get older. "
Re:Exposing babies to peanuts (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not diluting a peanut until there's barely any trace of the peanut left and then giving the barely-peanut water to the kid. They're using a peanut product that's of the appropriate texture and consistency for the age of the child.
Good rule of thumb: If you can look at something and say 'Hey! That is or used to be a peanut!', it's not homeopathy. If it looks like water, it might be homeopathy.
Re:Exposing babies to peanuts (Score:4, Informative)
Barely any trace? The chance of finding a single molecule of the diluted compound in a homeopathic product is less than winning the lottery several times in a row. (If the dilution is done properly according to homeopathic rules, which apparently was not the case for these teething gels).
Re:Exposing babies to peanuts (Score:5, Insightful)
My point was that this is an example of effective homeopathy.
No it isn't. The difference is that if you give a baby some peanut butter, there are ACTUAL PEANUTS IN IT. But if you use the typical homeopathic dilution of 100 fold dilution 100 times, then there is only 100^-100th = 10^-200 of the original amount. For comparison, the number of quarks in the observable universe is roughly 10^80. So the probability of there being even a single molecule of the original harmful substance is closer to zero than the human mind can even conceive. The "theory" is that, although the harmful substance has been diluted out of existence, the water has a protective "memory" of it being present. The "theory", of course, doesn't explain how this "memory" is possible when none of the original water is still present either, or why just using tap water doesn't work since it is also an extremely diluted solution of every known poison.
Re: (Score:2)
My point was that this is an example of effective homeopathy.
Homeopathy goes under the principle that you treat a symptom with something that is known to cause the same symptom. So for example, if you have inflammation, then you'd treat it with more inflammation. The problem is, assuming that you even had a meaningful dose of medication, this doesn't actually work.
Peanuts don't normally cause symptoms of any kind, so assuming that homeopathy was worth a shit at all (spoiler: it's not) there's no "like for like" treatment involved, so that theory wouldn't even apply.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Exposing babies to peanuts (Score:5, Informative)
My point was that this is an example of effective homeopathy.
No, it isn't. You're giving them peanut. Homeopathy is giving people nothing. N-o-t-h-i-n-g.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually the dictionary does not disagree with him:
http://www.webdictionary.co.uk... [webdictionary.co.uk]
The people that have a track record of actually curing people in the UK also do not disagree with him:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/h... [www.nhs.uk]
You seem be deluded. Educate yourself.
Re:TIL (Score:5, Insightful)
Superficially the idea may appear the same. The idea of vaccines, however, is to introduce a weakened form of the disease's cause, before the disease is contracted (or at least before it spreads), so the immune system can prepare for it. (Modern) homeopathy involves introducing (water which was indirectly in contact with) a substance which produces the same symptoms, after the disease is contracted. Notable differences are:
These are significant differences.
Also, I've never heard of a homeopath suggesting a similarity between homeopathy and immunisation. (I'd love to see this though, if anyone has a link to such.)
Re: (Score:2)
If you know one I suggest mentioning it to them so long as you don't mind them ever talking to you again :)
Psuedo-science scams are based on something real to drag people into the bullshit. See also "mesmerism", debunked by both Ben Franklin and Voltaire, which was based on magnetism. Mesmer had real magnets when magnets were rare but the rest was bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd better write some more to define the "good idea" because some will misunderstand or pretend to do so. The idea was to dilute a poison to the point where it would not kill the patient but would have an effect on a system that has a problem - eg. too much warfarin (used in rat poison) will kill you while a reduced amount inhibits blood clotting and
Re:Hyland's teething tablets (Score:5, Funny)
I am a father of 8, and I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that Hyland's teething tablets are effective, and I want to continue to use them for my baby. ...
Um, shouldn't your focus be on contraceptives?
Re: (Score:2)
He probably is using homeopathic contraceptives...
In all seriousness though, this is not about protecting the children of careful parents. The deaths and sicknesses were probably a combination of overuse and shoddy manufacturing where just one of the two would not have cause it. In litigation-nation, you of course always have to be safe for the dumbest possible customer. In countries with a sane legal system, that problem does not exist. For example, I can still get a package of Paracetamol large enough to
Homeopathic Contraception (Score:2)
Um, shouldn't your focus be on contraceptives?
What's the point? As a homeopath he would end just up using highly diluted viagra.
Re: (Score:3)
Um, shouldn't your focus be on contraceptives?
He's feeding deadly nightshade tablets to his kids. The problem will sort itself out.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Translation: I'm a father of 8 abused children, and I am unbelievably evil.
Re:Hyland's teething tablets (Score:5, Insightful)
Be Happy . . . Go Lucky!
Re:Hyland's teething tablets (Score:4, Funny)
There used to be this great Seattle-based comedy show called Almost Live (a sort of low-budget SNL), and they had this really hilarious skit with this tobacco company executive insisting "Smoking is completely safe. Leading chiropractors have found it in fact puts a protective lining on the lungs!"
Re: (Score:2)
I've never heard of a child dying from teething pain. They do die from medicine occasionally.
Re: (Score:2)
I know if I bought something that was supposed to help my child and it killed them there would be someone else dying soon afterwards.
Re: Hyland's teething tablets (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
How much belladonna is in the hyland product? It probably doesn't say on the box, but it seems like its enough to kill the kids, sometimes.
The FDA apparently knows and isn't telling.
Re: (Score:3)
Just because you can't read doesn't mean the FDA isn't telling.
They released their numbers, they aren't very useful since they varied widely within the same bottle and hence tell you next to nothing about any individual tablet.
Re: (Score:3)
According to the report the product had very inconsistent amounts of the deadly nightshade. Most tablets had amounts that couldn't even be measured which is the safe standard, others had over a thousand nanograms of the belladonna atropine (one of it's alkaloids) and several hundreds of nanograms of the scopolamine.
Given that for adults the "prescribed" levels are like 0.05g of the leaves (which only contain ~1% of the atropine by weight) for a psychoactive effect, you could consider that these are potentia
Re: (Score:2)
Stop selling IS NOT the same as won't recall what is already on the market.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any idea what the word recall actually means? That they have stopped selling the product says absolutely nothing about whether or not they have issued a recall.
The only thing misleading is your statement. I suspect you are either clueless or deliberately confusing the issue. Either way I would not trust any thing else that you say.
Re:Hyland's teething tablets (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not going to do a super long post here, but: "the effective ingredient in them is probably the belladonna rather than the homeopathic ingredients" is wildly off the mark. The point of homeopathic medications is that the active ingredients, including the belladonna, are present in such tiny amounts that they don't do anything. You can put poison in these things because there isn't enough to matter.
This is why the FDA doesn't regulate them: because they don't do anything. This is also why over-the-counter homeopathic remedies for infants weren't removed: because they don't do anything, so they aren't dangerous. In principle you can give your baby as much as you want, because it doesn't matter.
The problem here is a manufacturing defect, some of the pills contain too much poison. When you say that you want to know "what the current consistency of the belladonna levels in the product is" what you're asking is: "What are the odds that my baby will die if I give it some of these pills?" We don't know what the answer to that is, and you may find that frustrating but... what number is low enough for you here? If the FDA comes out and says, "0.0001%" are you going to shrug and say, "That's fine."?
Interestingly, this isn't the first time that this product has been scrutinized by the FDA over this issue. Link. [snopes.com]
Re: (Score:3)
..but Belladonna is intended to be one of the "homeopathic ingredients" here (along with some other nonsense). From their website:
Calcarea Phosphorica 12X HPUS: teething, dentition
Chamomilla 6X HPUS (Chamomile): for peevishness, restlesness and irritability
Coffea Cruda 6X HPUS: sleeplessness
Belladonna 6X HPUS (0.0000003% Alkaloids, calculated): redness and teething discomfort
To be clear, belladonna seems like a possible legitimate treatment (it does deaden nerves) if you got a real dose - but probably isn'
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, opium would probably deal with teething pain too, but your pharmacist is hardly going to give it to your for teething).
Here in North America, growing your own in your garden and giving babies "poppy water" was very common right up until the 1970's for teething.
You speak as if you have a clue, so I'll explain (Score:3)
Reading the way you wrote (as opposed to what you wrote), you do not seem to be a drooling idiot, so you must be misinformed / uninformed about the definition of homeopathy. In other words, a reasonably intelligent person who got scammed. I've seen intelligent people confuse "homeopathic" with "holistic", that can certainly happen.
Here's the theory of homeopathy, how proponents claim it works:
For any ailment, you find something that will *cause* that ailment (ie a poison).
You then place a drop of the poison
Re: (Score:2)
probably the belladonna rather than the homeopathic ingredients
But I thought that the belladonna was the homeopathic ingredient - which is to say the ingredient that's present in homeopathic quantities - which is to say not present at all. Except that it was present, because they did the dilution wrong, and hence you end up with a product with belladonna in it that you proceed to place in your child's mouth.
Also, I'm very far from convinced that teething is even really a thing. Kids get grouchy and irritable for many, many reasons, and I don't know if there's any actua
Re: (Score:2)
That's a patent thing - utterly stupid but nothing to do with the FDA. The short story is another company got the US patent for toys inside chocolate despite such things being available for many years.
Re: (Score:2)
Several times since I became a father, useful medications for children and especially for infants have been pulled off the market simply because of claims that parents are using wrong dosages...If infant tylenol cold and flu hadn't been yanked off the market for these ridiculous reasons years ago
I'm not sure what this "infant tylenol cold and flu" that you speak of is. I've never heard of it, and Google can't seem to find anything about it either.
What I do know is, when my first daughter (now 6 yo) was born we bought some Tylenol Infant concentrated drops. They were great since (like many kids) she didn't want to cooperate in taking her medicine. A few years later when it expired my wife went and bought some more. When I went to give it, I realized the dosage was way different and required giving h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We read your post. You're trying to defend giving your children a toxin, Mr. Christian Anarcho-capitalist...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One which has been used in herbal medicine for centuries as a pain reliever, muscle relaxer, and anti-inflammatory, and to treat menstrual problems, peptic ulcer disease, histaminic reaction, and motion sickness [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
People have used all sorts of things for centuries, that doesn't make them less toxic. You're feeding your children poison. You should be rotting in a jail cell, Mr. Christian Anarcho-capitalist.
Re:Hyland's teething tablets (Score:5, Insightful)
All medicines are poisons. The difference is dosage. When the FDA yanks normal cold products for infants because parents can't get the dosage right, it's a legitimate discussion.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Make sure you bleed them regularly, to keep their humors in balance and drain off toxic blood.
Re: (Score:2)
Finally, a chance to use my alchemy toolkit.
Re: (Score:2)
Male children?
Re: (Score:3)
You're not planning on having your kids vaccinated against communicable diseases, are you?
My kids are vaccinated.
Giving your kids a preparation containing an unknown quantity of belladonna ?
The FDA let them back on the market a few years ago when the problem with uneven levels of ingredients was supposedly fixed. So is the FDA admitting they flubbed up, here? Did Hyland's stop meeting the quality standards that got them back on the market? What has changed, exactly?
Re: (Score:3)
Or perhaps they (Hyland) did something else to warrant FDA's attention? Just to say - I remember a perfectly effective topical antiseptic called mercurochrome, which ended up being removed from the market here in the US because of the mercury present even though there was no clinical evidence that its use could cause mercury toxicity. With that said to support your position, in this instance I suspect that ten d
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
While we're at it, let's compare the accidental overdose statistics for both drugs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, the FDA didn't fuck up, they had the same problems as before - inconsistent amounts of the chemicals in the medicine. This could be due to bad QA or whatever, but that's Hyland's fault.
If you take a sample, most tablets contain what's considered "safe" - no active substance in the tablets aka sugar-pills or placebo. So Hyland is selling a placebo, however once in a while one of the tablets came back with insane levels (potentially psychoactive to adults) of the deadly nightshade chemicals. That's why it
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Science is superior because it requires compelling evidence. Not anecdotal evidence. Compelling evidence.
Okay, the FDA needs to release their evidence.
The fundamental theory behind homeopathics lacks compelling evidence.
I know that, and I don't believe in homeopathy, so I'm not sure why you're saying it.
This isn't some conspiracy to keep big pharma rich.
And I never said anything of the sort. You seem to be assuming a lot of things.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not aware of any alternative belladonna treatments. I didn't intend to sound like I was saying I'm not aware of any alternative treatments at all.
I don't expect to change your mind. Mostly I'm just venting because articles like this makes my blood boil
We all get less rational when we get like that.
Re: (Score:3)
So you just found out that the active ingredients in the product you are buying is not what the producer claims
No, I have known for two decades that homeopathy doesn't work, so I knew all along it wasn't the homeopathic ingredients they list that was doing the work.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't see a lot of infants given Botox injections, and I've never heard of anyone getting a Botox injection against their will. If you're an adult and you want to put one of the most toxic substances known into your body, fine by me. But if you start giving your baby poison, yeah, I think I want you put in handcuffs and charged with endangering your child.
Re: (Score:2)
The concept here is simple:
Basically, "Teething" is when your teeth grow in. It can hurt a bit. Babies will cry when they hurt. Crying babies are annoying.
Solution: Give the baby something that will make it sicker. If your baby is having seizures or vomiting, they're probably not crying.
Problem solved!
Re: (Score:2)
Both can be helpful in certain amounts. Everything is poisonous to some level, even water, but you don't see the FDA banning water.
The problem with the tablets is that they are placebo's (which is acceptable levels of poison to the FDA) but some of them contained thousands of nanograms of deadly nightshade substance. Hyland repeatedly couldn't fix the issue of not having consistent levels of poison in their placebo's.
Botox injections contain some poisonous substance but that amount is very strictly controll
Re: (Score:2)
You are confused.